It’s the second decade of the new millennium, and its official – the online job search is here to stay. That means it’s time to get your resume up to speed. But how and why should you update? Here is a starter kit for showing off your resume in digital style.

Learn about ASCII.
ASCII, or "ask-ee," stands for American Standard Code for Information Interchange. Basically, this is a set of characters that allow no special formatting such as fonts, bold, underlined or italic text. Think of it as a great equalizer when it comes to resume formatting; in other words, it means a text-only document that can be read by electronic eyes. With so many online applications, companies are using resume scanning to track and search resumes. This means they need a simple text format so databases can search through candidates, which is where ASCII comes into play.

Learn to use ASCII and format appropriately.
ASCII basically calls for a simple, no formatting-frills resume. To do this, save your resume as plain text format; you may get a notice that says your document is not compatible, but that’s okay for now. Then go through your resume and reformat accordingly by replacing bullets or symbols with asterisks or dashes, make sure columns and tables still align properly and check that everything is placed in a logical sequence. You can help text stand out by capitalizing headers, name, and other items of distinction.

Get up to speed on keywords.
Keywords are critical in the digital job search. Digital applications mean a flood of applicants for every job, which means employers need to sort through candidates more quickly. Keywords allow them to do this. However, no one but the employer can know exactly what the keywords are, so how do you end up in the “yes” pile? Most are job specific, so think about what you are applying for and write accordingly. Use the job description as a starting place. You can also search online for ideas since many sites have keyword lists or keyword hints and ideas.

General keyword tips.
Action verbs are still important, but nouns are becoming important as well. Examples include phrases such as marketing campaigns, customer database management, project-management, procurement, stock levels, etc. For many years, some people would load the first 100 words of their resume with only keywords because supposedly database search software would only look there. However, this is no longer the norm. Use keywords throughout your resume, but also make sure to add plenty to the beginning; this is partly for database searches and partly to help the first human eyes that see your resume get an immediate idea of who you are. A summary of qualifications at the top is a great way to accomplish this.

The most important part of updating your resume is to not let yourself get overwhelmed. Learning how to play by new digital application rules will come easily with practice, and it will help you to get your application to the top of the list.